8/9/2023 0 Comments Vox player album viewHood and Cooley write about the attendant emotions, and their lyrical references, characters and themes swirling into a matrix of grief, despondency and regret. Given their breakneck touring schedule, relationships frayed back home. Within two weeks, he writes two of their finest songs, "Outfit" and "Decoration Day." Afterward, their band tours for two years, wherein a gifted, 22-year-old upstart jumps in the van as third guitarist. Īs such, the story of Decoration Day has necessarily been told and retold:Īfter three failed bands together, Hood and his partner and foil, Mike Cooley - two incredibly distinct yet totally simpatico songwriters - finally get their big break with their fourth. And their ex-guitarist, singer and songwriter Jason Isbell - who made his precocious debut on Decoration Day - has led a GRAMMY-winning solo career that involves things like a GQ spread, an HBO doc and a forthcoming Martin Scorcese flick, Killers of the Flower Moon. Since then, Drive-By Truckers have evolved from scrappy, brainy, misunderstood road dogs to a bona fide rock institution. On June 17, the album will ring in two decades in DBT fans' ears and hearts. Named for the day that southern churches place fresh flowers on the graves of their ancestors, Decoration Day is their most vulnerable album by some margin, and a pivotal entry in the Athens, Georgia-formed rockers’ discography. Which makes it the perfect gateway to Drive-By Truckers' fourth album. "I try never to be condescending to the characters I write about, even the really s-y ones." "A lot of the people I write about are nothing like me, but there has to be some aspect to them that I can feel a certain empathy for or else I'm not interested in writing it," he continued. "They didn't meet until they were grown-ups, and it was just such a sad story. "It's not like they grew up together as brother and sister gettin' it on," Hood remembered more than a decade later. With immense pathos and an odd sense of sweetness, Hood tells the true story of a brother and sister falling in love with each other, having four babies and going to prison for their incestuous relationship.ĭespite this unconventional and taboo subject matter, by the end of these three minutes and 16 seconds, even the uninitiated can behold the Truckers' giant, beating heart. So begins "The Deeper In," one of Drive-By Truckers' prettiest and most affecting songs. "And your oldest brother was away at a home/ And you didn't meet him 'til you were 19 years old." "By the time you were born, there were four other siblings/ With your mama awaiting your daddy in jail," Hood warbles through his mealy Alabaman twang at the top of 2002's Decoration Day - one of the cult rock band's most beloved albums. And when singer, songwriter and co-leader Patterson Hood comes in alone, it's like a single lightbulb flaring up, illuminating the dusty air, brighter than creation's dark. It's a spine-tingling feeling for a Drive-By Truckers album to begin a cappella although it's only happened on three of them, it feels like a trademark, a wink.
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